a cat,
You can re-quite us well for that,
By catch-ing all the mice."

[Illustration: Where the wide wastes of o-cean lie,
The greed-y Gan-net loves to fly.]

[Illustration: Though ve-nom-ous, as authors write,
The Gek-ko is not known to bite.]

[Illustration: The Ri-ver Horse a-mong the reeds
Of A-fric's lone-ly ri-vers feeds.]

[Illustration: A-round our coasts the fish-ers meet
With Had-docks, which, when dri-ed, we eat.]

[Illustration: THE STRAY KITTEN.]

[Illustration: THE FIRST OF MAY.]

[Illustration]

THE MAY-POLE.

Round the May-pole, on the grass,
Mer-ry lit-tle foot-steps pass;
In the mid-dle Bes-sie stands,
With the May-pole in her hands;
While her play-mates dance and sing
Round her in an end-less ring.
Soon, in-deed, a feast they'll make,
Cow-slip tea, with nice plum-cake--
And so our leave of them we'll take.

THE FIRST OF MAY.

The haw-thorn blos-som, snow-y white,
Hangs thick upon the hedge to-day;
With many flow-ers the fields are bright
Upon this mer-ry First of May.

So let us ga-ther flow-er-ets fair,
And blos-soms from the haw-thorn spray,
To deck our May-pole stand-ing there,
Upon this mer-ry First of May.

And then, like fai-ries, in a ring,
A-round it we will dance or play,
And all our glad-dest songs will sing
Upon this mer-ry First of May.

And dear-est Maud shall there be seen
With crown of haw-thorn blos-soms gay,
And she shall be our lit-tle queen,
Upon this mer-ry First of May.

UNI-VER-SAL PRAISE.

See how na-ture now re-joices
In this sun-ny month of May;
Still to God from all its voices
Giv-ing prais-es day by day.
In the glad green wood-land al-leys
Ev-e-ry bird its an-them trills!
While flocks feed-ing in the val-leys,
Herds up-on a thou-sand hills,
Join with ev-ery crea-ture liv-ing,
Here on land, in air, or sea,
In one great world-wide thanks-giv-ing,
Yield-ing praise, O God, to Thee!
All a-round us swells the cho-rus
From this good-ly world of ours,
And earth's al-tar stands be-fore us
Sweet with in-cense from her flow-ers.
So, with Na-ture still con-fess-ing
His great good-ness, let us pay
Grate-ful hom-age for each bless-ing
Of this sun-ny month of May.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: LOST LABOUR.]

[Illustration: The sa-cred I-bis, we are told,
The E-gyp-tians much re-vered of old]

[Illustration: The I-gua-na's flesh is sweet and good;
It haun